Melee DPS Guide to ICC (In Progress)
So, you've mastered the intricacies of ToC, and you're ready to storm the Lich King's Citadel. Well, not so fast bucko. ICC is a different kettle of fish. The fights are more complex, more trash, more annoying mob abilities! So, here's a brief glimpse into the Melee DPS strats for the first handful of fights in ICC.
Wing One: (Not just for 1337's!)
Trash:
Oh neat... trash. Ah well, we gotta clear it, so off we go.
The Damned: Skeletonny mobs that beat up your tank and when killed do a splash AOE. Not too tough, let the healers deal with it.
Nerubian Broodmaster: Our friend Anub loaned these bastards to his friend Arthas as trash duty. They throw bugs at a single target and web wrap one person at a time. Usually splash damage from everyone's AE abilities will bust someone out. If you don't have splash damage, and are a rogue, like me, just keep beating on the tank target.
Servant of the Throne: These guys are right bastards. They have an AE attack that shoots out a path of icicles and hits everyone in the path for massive damage. Get 3 or 4 of them pointing in the same direction... yeah, that's bad. Generally speaking these dudes should be first on your hit list.
Ancient skeletal soldier: More skeletonny mobs that don't blow up when defeated.
Deathbound Wards: For the love of god, don't stand in front of them. They will pwn your face off. However, you shouldn't have to deal with these at all as long as your rogues aren't fail.
Lord Multiple Skeleton Heads. (Lord Marrowgar)
As a melee, there's not too much to this fight really. Alright, Huge skeleton dude. Huge hit box. Don't stand in front of him. Really. Don't. He has a melee attack called saber lash that will kill you. Periodically he will poop blue fire. Don't stand in it. Not even if Epi says you should. You can get away with not getting hit by the fire if you stand inside his red targeting circle, again though, don't be in front. Also periodically, He will spike a few (3 on 25 1(?) on 10) people. You should have a /tar bone spike macro set up. Hit that and beat the spike. Then get back to beating his ***. After he's done that a couple of times, he'll shout PORN STORM (or something) and twirl around like a fairy pooping more blue flames everywhere. Don't stand next to him, don't stand in the blue flames. Unless you're a rogue. If you're a rogue, you can feint and chase his bony *** around the room. Rinse, repeat, loot. He's not *that* hard really.
Run up the ramps for... more trash. And a chatty yelly ***** we call Lady Whorewhisper.
Trash in here's trash. Pull it, beat it up. One of the mobs will resurrect itself and annoy you some more. Beat his *** for this impertinence. Repeat with the other side of the room. There are also 2 giant bugs in here, periodically they will give herpes or some **** to a raid member. That raid member should go stand next to Epidemic for Max DPS. Plus, Epi likes Herpes. In the absence of an Epidemic, you can substitute Kanyamagufa. In all seriousness though, if you get teh bug herpes, go away from the raid and stand off to one side, in shame.
And now, you're ready for Whorewhisper. After she gets done with her little diatribe about Elevating **** beyond your ken or some other blather, your raid should split into a few parts. You're melee DPS, so you'll either be beating her mana shield up (good!) or beating adds up (bad!). As a (mut)rogue, I much prefer standing in one place beating on something that isn't trying actively to kill me... I leave that **** for the combat rogues ret pallies and DKs.
If you're on DW duty, just beat her ***. If she throws green **** under you, don't stand in it. If you're on add duty, follow your tank around and beat up the adds. Don't piss off the mutated ones, they hit like trucks. Remember in Transformers 2 when Optimus Prime punched through that one Decepticon's head? Yeh, it'd be like that. So yeah, adds. The adherents will go immune to spell damage when they're reanimated, and the Fanatics will go immune to Phys damage when they're reanimated. Beat up 3 or so waves of these dudes, and her shield should be about down. When it goes down, run over and beat her up. She'll spawn some ghosts that will blow up. For some reason Ort thinks you need to move out of the way of these. Its *probably* a good idea to move around a bit. WHen she dies, loot, and move on. Oh. One more thing. SHe'll MC someone at random. If she MC's you, secretly cheer for your now computer controlled character as you'll do massive damage to someone before you get CC'd. Go up the elevator for what's probably the most fun fight so far in ICC. Gunship. (Or, as its also known, the Loot Pinata)
Clear some more trash, easy hordies and stuff no biggie. Go get on your boat and get a jetpack from the goblin dude. Ranged DPS will be in the cannons, and more than likely you'll be on the "away team". Play with your jetpack a bit, don't try to land on the lift fans you'll fall and die (Thanks Epi). Don't fire up the event before your away tank has his jetpack on. SO the horde will come in and be all "WTF!! WE WERE HERE FIRST LOKTAR BLAH BLAH" And Brann's all "NO U!" and so you fight. Lorewise, its kinda weak, but eh, its really a cool fight. As melee DPS on the "Away Team" your primary concern is the Frost Mage dude on the other ship. He'll come out and freeze your cannons, preventing you from pwning their ship. So, take your handy dandy jetpack, and fly your *** across and beat him down. Your tank should engage Saurfang. You leave him alone, its between him and Saurfang. You know all those superhero and ninja movies where the head ninja's all "No, leave him for me! I want to pwn him myself!" That's kinda like this. Beat up the frost mage, and get thee back to your boat. Don't stand in the circles and stuff, and if you feel so inclined, help out the DPS on the boat. Careful though, the Big hordies WW and that will mess up your day of flying back and forth with your jetpack. A cool thing to know, when you land, you do damage to everything around you. When you target your landing on the frost mage, if you don't have the range to get there, you can do a slick mario double jump and land all up in his grill. But that's the whole fight pretty much.
The boat takes you around to DBS. DBS is great for Melee DPS. You get to stand in one place and work on finessing your rotation. Really, there's not a hell of a lot to the fight for a Melee DPS. But, for the sake of completeness, I'll go ahead and describe what I do. He'll run out and say some **** and be all "Raar! I was badass before, but Arthas has made me invincible!!!" Brann says, "Pfft, whatever" and charges his punk ***. DBS puts them up in some levitation thing so they can be conveniently out of the way, and the fight begins. My favorite thing to do is stand in front of the tank, stealthed, and tricks right when he says "Dwarves". Pop a pot of speed, and spam mut on dbs as he runs past. If done correctly, you get a little boost to DPS, and can use a second pot when Hero is popped. If done wrong... you die. During the fight, he'll throw out some blood beasts. Leave them alone. Don't AOE when he's casting it, the goal is to leave the beasts to the ranged dps. If you agro them, you will make Isley sad. We don't want Isley to be sad. And that's pretty much the fight as melee DPS.